New Gifts, without Brainstorm or Thirst for Knowledge

[Machinus]

It's been a while since I played Gifts. I had the most success with decks playing 4 Thirst and 4 Brainstorm along with Gifts. I think this deck is much worse without them. However, Gifts might still be good enough to play. So here is an idea:

Gifts 2015:

// 13 Control
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
1 Rebuild
1 Fire // Ice

// 6 Win
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Recoup

// 16 Combo Time
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm

//25 Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

I think Misstep is really important vs. Duress, Thoughtseize, Spell Pierce, and Pyroblast. I also think 4 Drain could be right since this might be the Mana Drain deck that is best able to exploit it. Jace is generally decent, but exchanging cards from your hand is very important in this deck.

Has anyone else been brewing Gifts?

[DuKeLiO]

I'm brewing with it also. We have lost some cards, but we gained also another ones like Snapcaster Mage.

Control: We have to play at least 3 Mana Drain to power up Gifts. Also I like to play some singleton defense cards instead of Mental Missteps to use Gifts Ungiven in counterwars. Misdirection, Flusterstorm and Mindbreak Trap aare very good counter when where are playing with an instant engine. Don't play Rebuild. Back in the day MUD played only 5 Spheres, but now one more mana is too important.

Recoup: It's a very bad card. Back ago were very weak, and now is almost unplayable. Now we have Snapcaster Mage, and it is all we need to power Yawgmoth's Will pile. Also, if you want a card like this maybe you can play Past in Flames with one Dark Ritual. There are other options to graveyard recursion like Noxious Revival. It's a card I've not tested yet, but I'm thinking playing one.

Burning Wish: I think this is the deck to abuse this card. Having access to Yawgmoth, Tinker and Pyroclasm so easy is very good. It's very dificult to run out of wincons and it makes very easy the eot gifts->Burning Will. The only drawback is the lack of sideboard Space.

Vault/Key: I don't like this combo too much and I think I have no room to play it, but if you play this combo add a Noxious Revival to do some cheap piles.

My decklist:

2 Snapcaster mage
1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
1 Flusterstorm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pyroblast
3 Repeal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Fire/Ice
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Jace the Mindsculptor
1 Dig Through Time
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Burning Wish
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
5 Mox
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
1 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn

Sb:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Duress
1 Treasure Cruise/Deep Analisys
1 Toxic Deluge/Pyroclasm
1 Mountain
4 Pulverize
4 GY-Hate (I don't know)

The weakest card in my list is probably Sensei, but I wanted to play it with the Repeals. I will try Noxious for 1 Snapcaster and a Misdirection for the Sensei

[boggyb]

Can the deck work with 4 Bob, 2-3 Jace, 1-2 Snap, and 3-4 Drain? A harder control deck with an overwhelming finish. I've been tinkering with it like mad but can't quite get it to work. My main issue with the deck is it's hard to find space for a draw engine, and Gush is suboptimal. Bob is suboptimal as well but I think he's better.

[zeus-online]

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[WhiteLotus]

Can the deck work with 4 Bob, 2-3 Jace, 1-2 Snap, and 3-4 Drain? A harder control deck with an overwhelming finish. I've been tinkering with it like mad but can't quite get it to work. My main issue with the deck is it's hard to find space for a draw engine, and Gush is suboptimal. Bob is suboptimal as well but I think he's better.

Have you tried Mystic remora, multiple sensei + keys (repeal even? works nice with top and has tempo applications), Dig through time? Worse case scenario I guess there's still night whisper or thoughtcast but those two seem just awful. Bob seems like he could do a lot of damage due to the highish curve and will still just be bad vs mentor and pyromancer decks.

here is what i've been working on so far:

Mana base
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tropical Island
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest

Advantage/ filtering
3 Mystic Remora
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll

Combo pieces
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Time Walk
1 Noxious Revival
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Disruption suite
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Flusterstorm
3 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Sideboard
1 Flusterstorm
1 Forest
3 Nature's Claim
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ravenous Trap

I don't think Tendrils of agony is the right wincon for gifts nowadays since a single sphere cuts you off from it in this kind of list whereas time vault and tinker are still live.
The biggest issue the deck has imo is the early game setup, it has plenty of threats that greatly improve it's consistency compared to the old builds, but it lacks good early game card draw. That's why I think remora is perfect, since it also has a strong disruptive/control ellement and makes use of the superfluous mana the deck has to pack.
I also tried a double key double sensei and dig through time approach, but I liked what remora had to offer better since aggro control decks are extremely spell based and mentor is not going to make that trend any different, cruises or not.

Here are the issues I have with this direction:
No Mana vault which is probably a mistake.
The 4th misstep could become a singleton Mindbreak Trap.
Could find a way to fit in dig through time(s) and ponder.
Regrowth or noxious revival, not sure which is better, do we need more than one?
Is adding a reanimation angle to the deck the way to go? maybe in the sideboard for specific matchups (like Elesh norn or Iona)

There are plenty of other shells to utilize gifts ungiven, Gush storm is a strong contender and so is TPS.  But right now it's extremely hard to predict how the metagame is going to shift with so much happening simultaneously ( insert Gifts ungiven, insert Monastery Mentor, take out Treasure Cruise). Time will tell which approach is best suited for the general and local metagames. In the Meantime I think we should have a ton of fun testing and tunning lists. It's a great time.

[emidln]

The reason for Recoup was that it's the cheapest way to force Yawgmoth's Will and guarantee value (i.e. you get 3 cards out of Gifts instead of 2). If you Gifts for Recoup, Will, X, Y, you get Will, X, Y for a worst-case cost of 5RB (assuming X and Y don't produce mana, the actual worst case is pile dependent). Snapcaster Mage doesn't do this. Noxious Revival doesn't do this. Past in Flames is worse at this unless you have several ritual effects around.

This isn't to say that you need to play Recoup. It simply might not be worth it, but I suspect that Recoup is as busted as it ever has been when giving you 3 spells off your Gifts.

Also, I'm not saying that you wouldn't want Snapcasters/Regrowths/Noxious Revivals in your deck. Having one of these cards already in hand is equal to casting Gifts when you already have Will. You just get all the cards.  Snapcaster Mage in particular is a ridiculous card because of how flexible it is, and Regrowth isn't too far behind.

[diopter]

Emidln: in a vacuum, totally agree about Recoup. However, since Snapcaster is actually quite useful on its own (esp. If you play stuff like Preordain to set up the big Gifts turn) is it feasible to have a no-Recoup Gifts deck?

One more slot, one less dead draw... Tempting!

[Meddling Mike]

Seriously, 2 posts in the last 7 years? Gifts is bringing some folks out the woodwork.

[ApolloGod]

I've been testing (in Freeform on MTGO) my Gifts brew. It's been working out quite well. I make changes to the list daily, so I can't post a definitive deck list. But, I can say a few things about what I like (and what I don't)

1.) I run 1x Noxious Revival and 2x Regrowth.
2.) My primary wincon is vault+key, secondary is tinker -> inkwell (in many matches, I prefer Inkwell especially if the Monastery Mentor + STP deck takes flight.)
3.) In Game 1, my Gifts Pile is usually [Time Vault, Key, Noxious, Regrowth]. In Game 2 (in the face of copious grave hate, my Gifts Pile will be some variety of [Abrupt Decay, Demonic Tutor, Tinker, X], where X is a flex spot that depends on additional hate and the board state.
4.) I've been liking my BUG version of the deck. I play Abrupt Decay and some number of Deathrite shaman.
5.) This is the most important point of my testing, and I'm still undecided: I usually run 2x Dark Ritual. It helps to power out a quicker Gifts. I don't know if I'd run only 1, and 3 feels superfluous. Regardless of how many I run, I'll board them all out in Game 2 against Shops.

[Machinus]

Seriously, 2 posts in the last 7 years? Gifts is bringing some folks out the woodwork.

It's not just Gifts. I rarely have the opportunity to play Vintage since I live in a remote area for Eternal magic. Gifts combined with a one-of tournament in my area brought me back!

[emidln]

Emidln: in a vacuum, totally agree about Recoup. However, since Snapcaster is actually quite useful on its own (esp. If you play stuff like Preordain to set up the big Gifts turn) is it feasible to have a no-Recoup Gifts deck?

One more slot, one less dead draw... Tempting!

It's possible, but you have to balance the possibility of not having Snapcaster Mage in hand and times where value gifts for 2 cards isn't going to be enough against the cost of that slot. If you were to play 2-3 Snapcasters, I could see the argument that you just have a snapcaster in hand often enough that Gifts is always just Will + 3 cards and you get all of them for 3UB.

[Machinus]

Ok I made a couple of changes with a little testing. I am not sure if StP is enough of a concern with Mentor, but I suspect that there will be some at the tournament I'm going to.

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Fire // Ice

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Recoup

3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Dack Fayden

1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm

1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

In this deck, a second mage may be better than Ponder since you don't want to be playing small ball usually.

[zeus-online]

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[Shock Wave]

You'd be amazed at how many games Inkwell Leviathan will lose for you. Run BSC.

[ApolloGod]

You'd be amazed at how many games Inkwell Leviathan will lose for you. Run BSC.

That's a very broad statement. Your tinker target of choice depends on many factors, meta included. When playing MTGO I prefer Inkwell. I seem to run into a lot of exiling shenanigans and bounce.

[WhiteLotus]

You'd be amazed at how many games Inkwell Leviathan will lose for you. Run BSC.

Totally agree Blightsteel ends the game on the spot in gifts deck since you are trying to setup tinker + walk, on the other hand tinker for inkwell looses to a lot of stuff like Monastery Mentor, Oath of Druids, Zombie tokens, tendrils, heck even pyromancer has a decent chance of racing it.

At least Sphinx is extremely hard to race due to vigilance and lifelink + resiliency to dack. Inkwell is just garbage.

[Shock Wave]

You'd be amazed at how many games Inkwell Leviathan will lose for you. Run BSC.

That's a very broad statement. Your tinker target of choice depends on many factors, meta included. When playing MTGO I prefer Inkwell. I seem to run into a lot of exiling shenanigans and bounce.

Sure, but this is a Gifts deck, and assuming no knowledge about your metagame, BSC is 100% the correct choice.

[Machinus]

Ok here's what I'm thinking for tomorrow:

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Dack Fayden
1 Fire // Ice

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Recoup

3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Snapcaster Mage

1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm

1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

1 Tolarian Academy
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

SB:
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pyroclasm
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Thoughtseize
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Mindbreak Trap

***
I went 3-1 with this deck, losing the mirror 1-2.

[Shock Wave]

I still don't get the Recoup, but otherwise it looks fine.

[Machinus]

I still don't get the Recoup, but otherwise it looks fine.

I put Recoup in my Gifts piles quite often. It usually gets a time walk for 2UR, and then I can get Tinker or Will later if they get countered.

Also, you can put 1 recoup, 1 snapcaster into a Gifts pile and then 2 spells that you need.

[Shock Wave]

I still don't get the Recoup, but otherwise it looks fine.

I put Recoup in my Gifts piles quite often. It usually gets a time walk for 2UR, and then I can get Tinker or Will later if they get countered.

Also, you can put 1 recoup, 1 snapcaster into a Gifts pile and then 2 spells that you need.

I get that it goes into Gifts piles, but it is very weak if you draw it. I would replace Recoup with a SCM specifically because SCM is just a much better card overall and you really only lose the marginal benefit of a Recoup+Gifts pile by cutting Recoup.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I'd think Past in Flames is just superior to recoup.  It's like a second yawg will almost.  It costs 1 more than a flashed back recoup but does so much more.  

[DuKeLiO]

Recoup is completely unneeded, you can do a lot of piles to Yawgmoths Will for sure with Snapcaster Mage and not needing to play a card so bad. In a list with Recoup, Blightsteel Colossus, Time Vault, Key, Mental Misstep and som situational answers, you will be flooded of situational cards too often. Noxious Revival is a far better card and you can put in also but I'm not a fan.

About Inkwell Leviathan it's very bad against a lot of deck. Tinker is the best answer against MWS decks, but with Inkwell Leviathan it's very easy for him to race you with Lodestone Golem. Sure, a control deck can't Jace it, but you give a lot of time for them to find a Hurkyl's Recall or win faster. The same against Oath. I think it is only good against Fish decks, and only if you play it very fast.

[emidln]

Recoup is only really weak if you play with no sorceries that are good/insane for an additional 1R. Things I've targeted with a non-Gifts pile Recoup:

Yawgmoth's Will (if you have Recoup in hand, like Snapcaster, you get all the cards you Gifts for)
Time Walk (2UR for a turn is still good, see Snapcaster Mage)
Demonic Tutor (2BR for a card is typically okay. This tends to bridge you to the actual win.)
Tinker (3UR for Tinker is still a BSC on the cheap).
Thoughtseize (1RB Coercion is situationally playlable, (against look at Snapcaster Mage).

When it comes down to it, think about Recoup as an additional Snapcaster Mage that trades instants for the ability to always flashback Will/Tinker. This isn't unreasonable and doesn't mean that you don't still play some Snapcaster Mages. This is just a tradeoff that you can sometimes only flashback your most powerful cards in exchange for the ability to ALWAYS flashback your most powerful cards.

[desolutionist]

Hey guys I had an idea while I got a great deal on a Griselbrand. What if Vintage Gifts became more like the old block Gifts deck and instead of Recoup/Will/Tinker/BSC played cards to put Griselbrand into play (Goryo's Vengeance)

Could find Tolarian Academy quickly via Gifts/Expedition Map and abuse it with Frantic Searches while filtering.

[DuKeLiO]

You can't compare Recoup with Snapcaster Mage. SCM is very flexible, beacuse you can rebuy a lot of cards on the deck, instead, Recoup is restricted at 4-6 cards in your deck.
Recasting a Time Walk with SCM leaves a 2/1 guy to attack planeswalkers and it is incremental with more copies. You win a lot of games attacking with SCM.
"Recouping" a Time Walk is cycling the Recoup for 4 manás at sorcery speed exiling Time Walk for the rest of the game. Tapping out at sorcery speed to cycle recoup is very risky aganist any counter-deck.
The problem with Recoup isn't when you have targets in the graveyard, the problem is when you haven't or you can't access it because Graffdigger's Cage or RIP. I think for a more flexible deck and a less miser losses because dead cards you must swap Recoup for one more Snapcaster Mage on every Gifts deck.

[Machinus]

I cast Recoup often, and I use the flashback ability too. I make great use of the card when I play with it.

People will often give you Time Walk as one of the two weaker cards in a Gifts pile. I set up walk into recoup+walk into flashback recoup+tinker or will or something like that. I also play 4 mana drains, and paying the 3R to flashback is really easy with drain mana. I think people may be forgetting that Recoup is active in the graveyard, so when your mana is producing properly you can get a lot of value out of the card. Also, if you are in a scenario where you are mana-flooded and draw Gifts, there is no way for an opponent to split your cards to prevent you from casting Will. Recoup works no matter where they put it.

(In the old days when the game had RFG I used to add two more turns with burning wish but Mark Gottlieb had to meddle in more places he didn't belong so you can't do that now.)

[enderfall]

(In the old days when the game had RFG I used to add two more turns with burning wish but Mark Gottlieb had to meddle in more places he didn't belong so you can't do that now.)

Sorry, guess I'm new-school: What is RFG?

[Machinus]

(In the old days when the game had RFG I used to add two more turns with burning wish but Mark Gottlieb had to meddle in more places he didn't belong so you can't do that now.)

Sorry, guess I'm new-school: What is RFG?

Removed from game zone. There was no exile zone. So you could cast burning wish, get back the time walk you just flashed back, cast it, and then it would go to the graveyard, where you could flashback the recoup on it again. You could take all 5 extra turns this way

[enderfall]

(In the old days when the game had RFG I used to add two more turns with burning wish but Mark Gottlieb had to meddle in more places he didn't belong so you can't do that now.)

Sorry, guess I'm new-school: What is RFG?

Removed from game zone. There was no exile zone. So you could cast burning wish, get back the time walk you just flashed back, cast it, and then it would go to the graveyard, where you could flashback the recoup on it again. You could take all 5 extra turns this way

Ah, my hiatus from 1999-2010 skipped over that period where the Wish cards were doing crazy things. Thanks!